ihavebeenfloated

I’ve got this friend, I’ve known him a long time. (18 years?) He’s always been… unreliable. You make plans, he usually falls through. Since being back in Whittier, he’s pretty much the only person I have to hang out with, etc.

When Batman Begins came out, I really wanted to go see it, and figured he’d go with. Turns out he went and saw it with some buddies of his (without calling and asking me, which kind of sucks, because generally when my “other” friends (of which I don’t have many) ask me if I want to go see a movie with them, I call Greg just to be nice and see if he wants to go), but he said he’d be willing to see it again. He says Sunday (Last Sunday, a week ago) would be good.

It hits something like five in the afternoon on Sunday and I call him and get his answering machine. (His family doesn’t answer the phone, they never have, and now they have some excuse not to (“We’re, uh, avoiding these people.”), but they’ve always screened their calls. What is most annoying is the fact that I know his parents are home and even though I’m like “hey, greg, uh, where are you?” on the machine they wont pick up and tell me that he’s elsewhere. His mom has picked up ONCE to tell me Greg wasn’t home, and she sounded snotty about it which sucked.) I leave a message saying, “Greg, uhm, thought you were going to call me about Batman Begins, call me back.”

I don’t hear from him until Friday. He’s going to this party, which he was going to invite me to (yeah, right), so Batman wouldn’t work. I went to the party, it sucked, as you can see in the prior post. At that party he tells me, “Oh yeah, I didn’t call you on Sunday because your message made it sound like you already went and saw it.”

...

But, he says, “Tomorrow evening will be great, we can go, I’ll give you a call.”

It hit about seven, and I gave him a ring. Answering machine.

I said, “Hey Greg, this is getting kind of ridiculous. At least you could have the courtesy (or maybe decency), to give me a call and tell me not to wait up for you. That would be the polite thing to do. Yeah, thanks a lot, bye.”

I mean, what the fuck? For the record, he’s done this to me approximately six to seven times since I’ve been back. He’s done it in a variety of ways, from just plain ol forgetting, ignoring, to making up elaborate excuses like, “I have to clean house,” as if that is going to take him all day. (And at one point, I head over there to help him clean, and we wend up hanging out for three hours in which… does he clean? Nope. He sits there and watches a movie with me. When I explicitly offered to help him clean house so we can leave.)

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. You’d think he would have been raised with some sort of social decency code in his blood. You know, if I make plans with someone, I don’t care how shitty I think they are, if I’m going to fall through or back out, I fucking call them and tell them. I don’t give a shit that Greg keeps bowing out on me, that’s fine, I could go and see the movie by myself. (Or today, I could have gone and seen it with my parents for free, but instead I waited so I could see it with him tonight. And that worked out really well.)

That’s what really gets me, is that I sit here waiting around for him to call me and tell me what’s up, and he doesn’t. I don’t leave and go and see the movie by myself because I’d hate for him to call me and be like, “Oh, you’re already watching it? Shit, I cleared this time up for it and…” you know? I’d feel guilty, then, like a decent human being should when you let down one of your friends.

That’s all I’m asking for. I’m just asking that either (1) you be honest and tell me that you have absolutely no plans of hanging out with me, (2) you make plans with me and you fucking keep them, or (3) if something comes up and you can’t make it, pick up the fucking phone. Call me, tell me you can’t make it, that’s what decent people do.

It’s not even being decent, it’s being human. Decent has nothing to do with it, it’s just one of those infallible proper things that everyone on this Earth should do.

Fucking asshole. I could be watching Batman right now. Or, I could have seen it seven hours ago for free. But, no, I waited around for the friend who doesn’t exist. That’s just fucking great.